Marcia Muller: Vanishing Point

Then I went up the walk and rang the bell.

No one answered.

I rang again. Waited.

No response.

There was a mailbox attached to the wall next to the door. I glanced around to see if anyone was watching me, then tipped its lid up and looked inside. A couple of days’ accumulation of what looked to be junk mail.

Not home, then. How could I find out how long she’d be gone, and to where?

I went back down the walk, turned, and looked at the house again. Much like the others in this tract, it had an untended feel. But with the others I sensed that the owners were either too poor to keep them up, or too busy with their boats and jet skis and RVs to bother-or maybe they were simply leading disordered lives. Here I felt something different: it was as if outward appearances didn’t matter because the life being lived inside didn’t matter either.

I looked up and down the block. No signs of life on the opposite side, but two doors down to my right, at one of the better-kept houses, a woman was digging in a flowerbed. She knelt on the grass, wearing shorts, a tank top, and a sunhat. I moved along the sidewalk toward her and stopped by the low white fence that surrounded the yard. “Excuse me.”

She rocked back on her heels abruptly. “Oh! You startled me.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you’d heard me coming.”

“I was zoning out, I guess.” Her face was a wrinkled and weathered brown, her eyes a clear, bright blue, as if exposure to the elements had worked the opposite effect on them. “It happens when I weed. Often I think that killing things shouldn’t be such a pleasurable activity. But, then, it enables other things, such as this fuchsia, to thrive.” She gestured at a healthy, purple-flowered plant.

“It’s a pretty one.”

“Yes. Thrives on moisture. Of which we have plenty.”

“So I hear from my Aunt Josie. Josie Smith. She lives two doors down.” I motioned toward number 113.

The woman took off her gardening gloves, noticed that in spite of them her fingers were grimy, and wiped them on her shorts. “Josie never mentioned having any family.”

“Well, we haven’t seen each other in a long time, but I had to come here from San Francisco on business, and I thought I’d look her up. It seems she’s not at home.”

“Never is, this week in August. Her vacation from the convalescent hospital.”

“Oh, she’s working in nursing again?”

The woman frowned. “She’s not a nurse, just works at Hillside, assisting with the patients. Grunt work, she calls it. Personally, I think it helps her pass the time. There isn’t much in her life since her husband died, besides the nursing home and her volunteer work for the hospice.”

Husband? “Yes, his death was a shame.”

“That terrible accident, those bad burns, and then some nurse at the hospital where he was taken gave him the wrong IV and he went into cardiac arrest.” She shook her head. “A tragedy like that is what tests a woman’s mettle. Made Josie want to care for others. And she does.”

“I’m having a memory lapse. Where was it her husband died?”

“Someplace in northern California. It’s why she came up here, she said. To escape the past.”

“It sounds as if you’re good friends.”

“Not really. She keeps to herself. Stays in that house of hers, unless she’s at work or volunteering. The way I know her is that I volunteer for hospice myself. One night I gave her a ride home because her van was in the shop, and asked her in for a glass of wine. I’m nosy, so I pried into the details of her life. I think she regretted what she told me, because she’s kind of avoided me ever since.”

“When did she move to this neighborhood? I had to ask another relative for her current address, because the one I had-from Christmas of ninety-four-wasn’t good.”

“Spring of ninety-five, I think. Yes, it was the year my first grandchild was born.”

“And you say she’s on vacation now?”

“That’s right. Every year, the last week in August, without fail. She has a standing reservation at the Crater Lake Lodge. Calls it her ‘mental health week.’ Says it’s the only thing that keeps her sane, after all the illness and death she sees at work.”

Mental health week.

Mental health day.

In spite of all that had come to pass, one thing hadn’t changed for Laurel Greenwood.

Crater Lake, less than fifty miles northeast of Klamath Falls, was formed by a massive volcanic eruption that has been carbon-dated at having occurred some four thousand years BC; the blast caused the shell of then twelve-thousand-foot Mount Mazama to collapse inward, lopping off four thousand feet and creating a vast crater. I once read that no streams flow into the lake; its water is derived entirely from rain and snow, and its intense blue color is due to the water’s purity reacting with the sunlight.

A few years ago Hy and I had flown over the lake at dawn. We crested the pines on the eastern side, and suddenly it spread below us-huge, ringed by stark volcanic outcroppings. The first rays of the sun moved across its glassy, still surface like a golden stain. Hy pulled back on power and, as we glided closer and closer to the water, a silence so great that it rivaled the whine and throb of the engine rose to greet us. This was the world as it had been in ancient times; this was eternity.

It was an experience that made me aware in a profound yet comforting way of my own insignificance and mortality. Comforting, because I realized I was part of a magnificent creation. I’m not particularly religious, but you don’t have to be to partake of the feeling; you simply have to relinquish control and exist in the moment.

Today as I drove north from Klamath Falls, I suspected that this upcoming experience of the lake would be very different from my previous one.

The lodge was an imposing building composed of several wings, stone on the lower story, dark brown wood above, with a steeply sloping green roof punctuated by two rows of dormer windows. Sturdy stone chimneys towered above it, and pine-covered hills loomed even higher. I left my rental some distance away because the parking lot was crowded and hurried toward the main wing. Although it was warm outside, the interior was cool and dark. I paused for a moment to get my bearings.

The space was wide and long, with highly polished hardwood floors dotted with area rugs and rustic wooden furnishings, the chairs with wide arms and bright woven cushions. People in tourist garb wandered through, exclaiming at the huge fireplace and beamed ceilings. I located reception, crossed to it, and asked if Josie Smith was registered.

The clerk, a slender man with large hair and a small ring in his left ear, said, “Yes, she is, but she’s not in her room. I saw her go by an hour ago with her book; you’ll find her on the veranda. She’s always there this time of day.”

“My friend is a creature of habit, isn’t she?”

He smiled. “You could say that. One of the long-term employees says she’s been coming here this same week every year since nineteen ninety-five, when the lodge reopened after it was reconstructed. She reads on the veranda every day from four o’clock till sunset, then has dinner in the dining room.”

“Is she always alone?”

“She sometimes converses with the other guests but, yes, she pretty much keeps to herself.”

“Well, I’d better go find her.”

The veranda was wide, concrete-floored, with a low stone wall topped by a wrought-iron safety fence. Rocking chairs of natural bark logs with caned backs and seats were arranged along the railing. Several groups of people sat there, their feet propped on the wall, sipping wine and talking. Farther down I spotted a lone woman in jeans and a T-shirt, her legs tucked up under her; she had a hardcover book spread open on her lap, but her head was raised, her eyes on the lake.